Global Ice Cream Market - Annual Review - 2016

The global ice cream market continues to enjoy robust growth. The primary driver of this growth is uptake in emerging regions like Brazil and China, which now accounts for two fifths of global ice cream sales, mainly thanks to rising incomes. Growth in these regions has helped to offset declines in established markets like the US, Canada and UK. The US performance illustrates how consumers in developed ice cream markets are curbing their intake of sugary food, amid ongoing publicity about the link between sugar and obesity. Perhaps signalling lower confidence in the market, North America was the only global region to see a lower number of ice cream launches in 2015, than in 2014. The fact that one in five US consumers reported buying fewer frozen treats in 2015 because they were unhealthy, illustrates how manufacturers can no longer rely on ice cream’s indulgent image alone to secure growth.

And although mature markets like France, Germany and Japan are seeing fairly flat growth, there remains a huge consumer appetite to see new innovation ideas, presenting a means to revitalize growth. The ice cream market is a hotbed of innovation and trends are emerging from one part of the world to inspire innovation in another, as seen with the proliferation of mochi ice cream and gelato.